Good afternoon, Excellencies and colleagues.

My name is Dr. Josef Boehle. I am from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom and I am the Coordinator of the UNESCO Chair in Interfaith Studies. At our University, we have for several decades worked on intercultural and interreligious issues. We have programs on interfaith education and also many research projects in that area.   

In Europe, there will be a Network of Departments of Religion and Theology of 57 European universities being launched next Friday. This network will focus on how to teach religion in multicultural societies. Also next Friday will be the launching of the UNESCO Network of all UNESCO Chairs that work on Interreligious and Intercultural Studies. So, next Friday, two major new networks of people who work in the academic field on these issues will be launched in Europe.   

The University of Birmingham has sent a letter to the Chair of the Tripartite Forum on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace, expressing our support for the Forum and we look forward to work together with the Tripartite Partners, especially in the field of research. At our University we will also be developing an overview of all other ongoing, similar interreligious and intercultural initiatives. We will aim to provide an assessment and critical analysis of all these diverse but inter-linked initiatives in order to propose areas where and how they can better cooperate.

Thank you very much.